


Detective Mukumuku: Tricks and Treats

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Detective Mukumuku (Suikoden II) [2]
Category: Suikoden II, Suikoden Series (Video Games)
Genre: Holidays, M/M, Murder Mystery, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: An apparent murder in the castle's cemetery leaves more questions than answers as Mukumuku must untangle a mystery as the former city-states prepare for the final negotiations to form with Highland into the Dunan Republic. Does the murder have something to do with the delicate politics of the moment? Or with the plans to perhaps shutter the castle at North Window? Or is there something more...nefarious going on? Something that might have to do with the approach of the Night of Tricks, a winger holiday where all bets are off? All that Muku knows is that he needs a stiff drink and a hard fuck if he's to cope with the added headache and the mound of paperwork when this is all over...
Relationships: Kinnison/Shiro (Suikoden), Mekumeku/Mukumuku (Suikoden)
Series: Detective Mukumuku (Suikoden II) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1345810





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after the end of Suikoden II, so spoilers abound. I'll update the tags as I go bc I'm not sure yet who the pairings are going to be. Given the previous Detective Mukukmuku, though, things will probably get...weird.

Mukumuku looks down at the body. Takes a deep drag on his cigarette. Holds the smoke in like it’s the truth, that most elusive of substances, the thing he tells himself he’s always pushing towards. Holds it until it seems to encroach on his vision, clouding the scene. Then, he lets it go, exhales in a deep sighing rush.

“The fuck is this?” he asks to no one in particular. To the scene. To the corpse. To his twink of a partner, Kinnison.

Only the twink answers him.

“Preliminaries show no obvious cause of death,” Kinnison says. Despite his youth and his sexual relationship with the chief of security in the Rainbow Army, the kid makes a decent investigator, and is a deadly shot with the bow he keeps looped on his shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t old age,” Muku says. He looks from the body, face down in the dirt, to the freshly dug grave in front of him. And at the head of the grave, a new marker, a stone pillar about two feet tall. Roughly chiseled with a name. _Makai_.

“This is going to be a pain in the ass,” Muku says, and flicks his cigarette but onto the dirt, crushing it out with a small slippered foot.

“Apparently he was in the castle to negotiate the post-war treaty with the rest of the city-states,” Kinnison says. “He’s not officially the mayor of Two River, but he’s about as close as they have.”

“Enemies?”

Kinnison flips through his little notebook.

“Well, he’s on mostly friendly terms with most of the other city leaders. Was supposedly quite close with Fitcher of Muse. Mostly well liked by the various factions in Two River. Respected by Kiba. Tolerated by Suzu, the winger elder. Apparently not a hugely popular figure in South Window. About ‘as bland as cold oatmeal’ according to most who knew him.”

Muku swears under his breath and pulls out a new cigarette, lights it with the flourish of a match.

“Fine, fine.”

Muku circles the body slowly. “Huan didn’t have anything useful to say?”

“Just that there are no obvious signs of a struggle. No blunt force trauma, no lacerations. The only odd things is…” Kinnison motions to the corpse’s face.

Right. The look of complete and utter horror on the man’s face.

“So what? We’re thinking…scared to death?” Muku hates to ask it, but it’s the day before the Night of Tricks and that means there’s bound to be some mischief. Maybe it wasn’t meant to escalate to murder.

“Possible, though Makai wasn’t known to be especially weak of constitution. Easily frightened? Maybe. He wasn’t exactly brave during the war, leaving it to Kiba and the wingers to do most of the actual fighting while the humans remained in Two River for ‘homeland protection.’”

“Right, right.” Didn’t exactly sound like it would have been a popular move, but probably the kobolds and wingers didn’t mind having a human mostly in charge who was a bit of a coward. Probably he wouldn’t be running any purges, at least.

Muku passes a few of the nearby graves. Having a basement graveyard is one of the more interesting parts about the castle, but it being only accessible through a single hallway might at least mean someone saw whoever it was did this entering or exiting. Searching the area, he finds a few dark coarse hairs, some pieces of a green colored glass, and some claw marks on some of the nearby grave markers.

Not a lot to go on.

“And do we know what Makai was doing here the time of his death?” Muku asks.

Kinnison shrugs. “The chief has put out a net, but given the chaos from the meeting, it might take some time to get the full story.”

Muku grumbles. Isn’t this why they have Jowston Hill? To have these kinds of official meetings and the like. He rolls his eyes at the explanation Shiro, the chief, had given him, that this meeting was notably _without_ Highland involved. That it needed to be a bit more out of the way. Framed more as a celebration than an official negotiations. Not that anyone was buying it.

Muku sighs. In some ways he misses the simplicity of the war. Certainly he misses Riou, who hasn’t been seen since his final victory over Highland. The ultimate fate of the castle is still up in the air. Which is probably why people are gathered here to make just that decision, and to decide how the previous city-states are going to enter the annexation of Jowston into their dream of a Dunan Republic. A giant fucking headache, in other words.

“And who found the body?” he asks. That, at least, he hopes is simple.

“Gantetsu,” Kinnison says.

Muku groans. Never mind. Nothing was _ever_ simple with that man. Still, it gave them a place to start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muku follows up with an interrogation of the closest the case has to a witness, the muscled monk Gantetsu.

Muku assumes that in another life Gantetsu was an incredibly smooth boulder, and has spent his current life stuck with strange erotic memories of that time, because his entire aesthetic is balls. From the large ones her wears around his head to the bald sphere of his head to the bulging muscles of his body. Just…balls. From what Muku has observed from their time together in the army, Gantetsu is otherwise rather austere. He lives for beating the shit of out people, eating disgusting boiled spinach, and aggressive massages negotiated in the baths. He and Tetsu like to get wet and lathered, the rumors were.

Kinnison brings Muku to where Gentetsu is waiting, inside the gravekeeper’s office.

“We can’t do this in a less…creepy as fuck location?” Muku asks.

“This is where I live,” Gantetsu says.

Muku stares at him.

“I prefer a life of quiet dignity.”

“You masturbate on the graves or something?”

“I am a holy disciple of the teachings of Qlon!”

“I’m not hearing a denial there. Kinni, write that down.”

“You will do no such thing!”

Muku rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine, just tell us when you found the body.”

“This morning. I woke to find a strange fog in that part of the graveyard.”

“A fog?”

“Yes. I assumed it was just…fog. It cleared up pretty quickly. That’s when I noticed the body.”

“A fog. You know we’re underground, right?”

“Underground fog is said to be the breath of dragons rising up from deep within the earth. At Qlon, we are taught that such phenomenon are not unusual, especially in underground tunnels. Though the breath is often noxious and is best avoided.”

Muku pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine, okay. So, you sleep here. That’s great. Did you notice Makai enter the graveyard last night? Have you noticed anyone else spending time in the graveyard?”

The monk shakes his head. “I have not.”

Muku points back towards the body, and the freshly dug grave. “You just missed someone digging in here?”

“I spend much of my time training outside, near the cliffs. Or in the baths. My body is a temple, and needs constant maintenance to maintain my spiritual and physical superiority. If you doubt me, I offer to wrestle you in accordance with my deeply held beliefs.”

“No thanks. So, no to seeing Makai enter. No to seeing anything suspicious. Fine. Just answer me two things, then. Who _have_ you seen in cemetery? At all. And when did you retire back to…here last night?”

Gantetsu squints in thought. “Viktor visits from time to time. One of the graves in the back. Daisy. Normally he brings alcohol. Sometimes he brings his boyfriend.”

Viktor and Flik. Well, neither of them would have anything to do with this. On principle, if they were going to kill someone, it’d be out in the open.

“Mazus is sometimes here, poking around.”

Muku grimaces. Way more suspicious. But he had no desire to have anything to do with magic after what happened with the mystery meat.

“And Sid often hovers about, hoping to scare visitors.”

Muku raises an eyebrow. Sid. A winger, and therefore a former resident of Two River City. That would also account for the coarse hair and the claw marks. Wingers’ wings were batlike, and covered in dark hair, even if the hair on their heads was a different color. Not that Sid is a joy to converse with, but if it means not having to confront Mazus, Muku would bite the bullet.

“As for when I retired, it was late. Probably a bit before midnight.”

“Okay thanks,” Muku says, heading out the door. “Don’t skip town, but feel free to go about your…business. If you remember anything else yada yada yada.”

He lets Kinnison catch up as he sets a brisk pace out of the cemetery. Good fucking riddance.

“So what’s are next move?” Kinnison asks.

Muku wants to say getting shitfaced as the bar, but he supposes that will have to wait.

“Right now we’ve got an idea of who might have been around, but absolutely shit-all for motive or cause of death. We have to talk to Sid, of course, but I think it might be worth it to question some of the people who knew Makai first. Which means I guess checking in to see if the chief’s net caught anything.”

Kinnison brightens at the news.

“Jez, kid, hide the boner a bit, okay? Just because you’re likely to get a quickie while you’re delivering the news doesn’t mean you have to be so enthusiastic about it. A man’s dead, after all.”

Kinnison flushes an adorable shade of crimson. Guilty as charged, then. Muku sighs.

“Look, you get what information you can out of Shiba. I’ll go and…prepare for the meeting with Sid.”

“Yes, detective,” Kinnison says, and basically skips off toward the station and Shiro’s furred embrace.

Muku squares his shoulders. It’s not exactly a lie he told the kid. Just not…the whole truth. He knows getting the truth out of Sid is going to be about as easy and bleeding a stone golem. But it might be easier if they’re speaking the same language. For Sid, and especially this close to the Night of Tricks, that means pranks. And that means a stop at an old friend’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muku is low key terrible at his job and I love it. also anyone reading this will see exactly which characters I have no time for in this game.


End file.
